Presidential Leadership: Skill in Context

Abstract

The essay illustrates the value of studying individual presidents consecutively across time in order to compare and assess the relative importance of personal political skill in political and historical contexts. The presidency is the primary source of moral agency in American politics, and policy and agency occur in the leadership of individuals. An analytic framework to compare presidents encompasses the historical context; the skill factor; leadership strategies and tactics; and the assessment of results of skill in contexts. Use of the framework will permit systematic comparison of presidents in relation to the ad hoc ahistorical comparisons that permeate journalism and some scholarship. Narratives of leadership in domestic, economic, and foreign policy are presented for presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. This approach achieves an understanding of presidential leadership that cannot be achieved by work that bemoans the small N and focuses on pieces of the presidential institution, without including the president, because the dynamics of leadership shape the institution more than the reverse. Among the conclusions are that skill and context reinforce each other in policy achievement; skill can be effective at the margins, even in unfavorable contexts; ineptness makes a difference for the worse; and cumulative presidents may resolve policy problems across time as each contributes a step on the way.